“If we do that, they’ll attack instantly,” David pointed out, fidgety and nervous.
Butch nodded his agreement. “Considering we have no idea how many are in the caves, it would be a dangerous move.” Not that Butch sounded particularly moved by the prospect of danger. In fact, he never seemed to be moved by anything, always appeared deceptively calm, collected, and laidback.
“We’ll have to take our chances.” Evan’s tone was practically lifeless. “It’s the only way we can retrieve Cristiano’s vampires.”
When the squad turned questioning gazes mine and Sam’s way, I said, “I’m not comfortable with the idea of invading their home, but I think Evan’s right.”
Sam nodded. “We have no other option at this point.” She turned to the heavily muscled Pagori who was currently tying back his brown shoulder-length hair. Stuart did the same with his own blond curls. “Reuben, I need you to use your gift on Chico, David, and Salem.” With a single touch to their shoulders, Reuben’s gift of power augmentation had made Chico’s poisonous thorns, David’s psionic boom, and Salem’s psychic punch all fatal. “Don’t move quietly – give them plenty of warning that we’re approaching the door so that they aren’t alarmed. If they still don’t open up, we’ll have to let ourselves in.”
Making no attempts to conceal our presence, we covered the distance to the entrance of the caves. The door was camouflaged to look like part of the mountain in order to fool any humans, but a vampire’s enhanced eyesight could easily spot it. When there was still no reaction to our presence, I projected a lightning bolt powerful enough to completely shatter the door. Fanning away floating dirt, I looked to see a downward channel about eight feet deep.
“Not even the noise of someone breaking in has gained a reaction from them.” Cristiano shook his head, incredulous.
“Damien, Reuben – I want both of you to wait here and keep watch,” I told them. “If you see any movement at all out here, you contact me straight away.” They both nodded obediently and took on an alert, aggressive stance. Satisfied, I turned back to the entrance in time to see that Evan had taken the lead and jumped down the channel. He was obviously feeling shitty enough to be careless with his own safety.
Sam looked at me. We shouldn’t have let him come. His head’s not in a good place right now.
I’ll talk to him. I swiftly descended only to find myself at the entrance of a tunnel. Evan was waiting there impatiently. At least he hadn’t set off on his own. I held his gaze. “Evan, you need to get your shit together.”
His eyes flared with anger. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not, and this isn’t the time to talk about it. But I swear if you act careless and put Sam and my squad in danger, I’ll teleport your ass out of here. Got it?”
He gave me a curt nod and returned his attention to our surroundings. Although it was dark, my vampire night vision allowed me to see the junction further down the extremely long tunnel. Signalling for the others to follow, I moved aside to give them room. One by one, they descended the channel. Before I could give any further directions, Evan began walking, clearly intending to take the lead. Sam and I exchanged an exasperated look but let him be.
We flanked him as he slowly led us through the tunnel. There was no one at all around. No sounds other than our own footsteps. “They have to know we’re here,” I said to Sam.
“It doesn’t make any sense that they wouldn’t care.” As she repeatedly clenched her hands, as if eager to attack a threat we couldn’t see, tiny sprinkles of silvery-blue energy dripped from her fingers, peppering the air like fairy dust. Now that she was a hybrid and much stronger, she didn’t have to absorb the surrounding energy anymore; it came to her, filled her, waiting for direction. Silvery-blue glimmers of it played around the surface of her body.
We continued down the tunnel, stopping only when we reached the junction. There were no sounds coming from any direction. Sam indicated for Evan to keep moving forward, and we again followed closely behind him. Then I was gagging as a foul stench crept up on me. I wasn’t the only one balking.
“It’s like rotten fish.” Sam’s words were muffled by her sleeve as she used it to cover her mouth and nose.
“Jesus,” exclaimed Chico, coughing along with the others. “What is that?”
Evan suddenly held up his arm, gaining everyone’s attention. “Do you guys hear that?”
I did. A voice…but it wasn’t speaking. It was…moaning?
“Do you think they’re all hurt? It would explain why no one’s come.”
Evan’s theory was a decent one, made sense…yet, my gut said no. Every instinct I had told me to get out of there and to get out of there now. I could sense that Sam’s anxiety equalled my own. Good, maybe that meant I could talk the crazy bitch out of going any further. Sam never allowed fear to hold her back, she used it as fuel. While that was admirable, it drove me fucking insane because I wanted her safe. Sure she was strong, but she wasn’t invincible.
I grabbed her arm, bringing us both to a halt. “We need to leave. This is beyond weird now and has entered the realm of too damn dangerous. We’re putting ourselves and everyone here at risk by staying.” I expected a snarl or a snort from her, but she instead nodded.
“You’re right. This is”
A long, drawn-out moan pierced the silence. Every single one of us froze in position. A few seconds later, there was another moan; it was filled with pain, hopelessness, and misery. Technically, such a sound should have made me want to run to that person’s rescue.
It didn’t.
Instead, it made my blood turn to ice. Then there was another sound: scuffling. Someone was coming, but their footsteps were so sluggish that their feet were dragging against the ground as they moved.
I wasn’t sure what I expected to see when that person finally rounded the head of the junction, but it wasn’t the sight before me. The shirtless vampire was so gaunt, skeletal, and emaciated that it was revolting. His glowing red eyes looked like they had been sucked inward and much of his hair had fallen out. His ribcage was visible, his shoulder blades were sticking out, and he had a greyish, translucent complexion. Basically, he looked like a skeleton with a layer of skin stretched over it. And there was only one thing that made a vampire look like that.
This really wasn’t good. “Evan, don’t go any closer.”
But either my brother was feeling suicidal or he had no idea just how dangerous a starving vampire could be, because he was actually approaching the Pagori. What I wanted to do was order everyone to hold hands and then teleport us all out of there, but I couldn’t reach Evan to grab him and there was simply no way I was leaving him behind.
“All of you slowly retreat,” I said without moving my gaze from the starving vampire. “We need to get the fuck out of here. Don’t take your eyes off him. And whatever you do, unless he leaps at you, don’t run.” They each followed my commands instantly, except for Evan. He was instead continuing to move forward. “Evan, what the fuck?”
“He’s starving, Jared, he needs blood, get over here.”
Clearly Evan had never been near a starving vampire before. I had. “Yes, he’s starving. That makes him dangerous. He’ll attack you.”
“Attack me? Look at him, he’s practically falling to pieces – he doesn’t have the strength to take me on.”
That was where my brother was wrong. “You’d be surprised just how strong and fast a vampire can be when it’s desperate. Right now, he’s desperate. So move your stubborn ass away from him!” I thought he’d keep ignoring me, but instead Evan sighed and took a step backwards. That was when the vampire lunged at him. He knocked Evan to the ground, his mouth latching onto his throat and gulping down his blood so strongly it was sickeningly audible.
Before I could react, one of Sam’s powerful energy balls struck the vampire, making him burst into ashes with a scream. Then we were both at Evan’s side, helping him from the floor. As I’d expected, the bite was bad. The vampire had
almost taken a chunk out of Evan’s neck with his overriding thirst. “You okay?”
Evan put pressure against the badly bleeding wound with his hand. “No.”
“Well, that explained why no one came.” When a vampire went into ‘starvation mode’, their senses gradually dulled until they were even less acute than human senses. Furthermore, their predatory drives increasingly took over as their need for survival made them operate on an almost animal instinct – losing rationality, reason, and civilisation. That was why they were also unable to focus enough to use their gifts.
I tensed as the ground seemed to rumble beneath us. Worse, it sounded like a freaking stampede was heading our way. Clearly the racket we’d just made and the sound of the vampire’s scream had gained us some attention. If that was the rest of the nest coming toward us, we were doomed if we didn’t get out of there now. I turned, intending to order everyone to hold onto one another so I could teleport us all outside. That was when I noticed that not only was there a big gap between us and the others – who had clearly continued following my order to retreat – but none of them were looking at me. They were staring at the horde of vampires that were charging down the other end of the tunnel, heading for them.
Fuck, we were boxed in.
Having the deadliest gifts, David, Chico, and Salem immediately began attacking the starving vampires approaching them, taking advantage of the distance still between them. At the same time, Harvey used his telekinesis to shove them back again and again. Having faith that they could all handle themselves for now and do what they had been trained to do, I joined Evan and Sam in dealing with the flock of vampires that were fast approaching us.
Sam was attacking with energy balls, energy bolts, and thermal energy beams. Evan was freezing every vampire that came at him – not to ice, but completely immobilising them so that there was no blood-flow, no heartbeat, no breathing, nothing. Mere milliseconds after the vampires were frozen, they exploded into ashes.
I joined the fight; sending charge after charge after charge of electricity from my hands. But there were just so damn many of them that even our combined efforts couldn’t keep them completely at bay. Any time a vampire managed to get too close, Sam would slam up her shield, causing the vampire to bounce away. But they weren’t deterred; they continued to charge at us. Sam then conjured an energy shield big enough to encompass her, me, and Evan, but the vampires tried crawling over it like ants.
“Bollocks to this,” she gritted out. A blast of wind flew out of her palms, sending the vampires zooming through the air until they collided with the wall at the end of the tunnel. She then swiftly tapped into the natural elements, using the earth to quickly build a wall to block the tunnel. “It won’t hold them back for long,” she warned. She was right; no sooner had the tunnel sealed shut than the wall was being charged at. “Quick, go, go, go!”
Turning, I took in the sight in front of us. Butch had formed a deflecting shield and was using it to protect Salem, David, and Chico as they attacked the starving vampires. Unfortunately the shield wasn’t big enough to act as a barrier, and some of the vampires had gotten past it. Denny was shooting yellowy-green ooze out of his thumbs and smallest fingers to engulf and spring them away while Harvey was using his telekinesis to fight off others. But still some vampires had slipped through.
One was currently biting into Stuart’s arm, who then quickly exploded into molecules in order to get free. Another had its teeth buried in Max’s throat as Cristiano attacked it from behind with a knife that I was guessing he’d conjured – nice gift. Ava was fighting off a third and, damn, could she fight! Sam was right; tiny Ava could take care of herself. Apparently that didn’t matter to Salem, because the big guy suddenly turned, looped an arm around her, pulled her back against his chest, and sent a lethal psychic punch hurling at her attacker.
Sam, Evan, and I leaped into action immediately. Sam took Stuart’s attacker out of the equation with an energy ball before joining Evan and me at the front of the group. Sam’s hands were suddenly like flamethrowers as she set the vampires alight, wincing at their high-pitched screams. My bolts of electricity took care of some of the other vampires that followed while the squad dealt with the rest. Still, there were just too many of the fuckers.
When Harvey telekinetically sent them flying down the tunnels, giving us plenty of space, I hollered, “Everyone hold hands!”
Just then, Sam’s wall crumbled behind us. Starving vampires were then charging at us from two directions. Thank fucking God that everyone had immediately done as I’d ordered, because I then managed to teleport us all outside of the caves before the vampires could reach us. Reuben and Damien instantly crowded around Evan, Stuart, Max, and Cristiano, who were all bleeding pretty badly. Fuck.
“We need to make sure they’re all destroyed.” I lifted my hand, and projected an extremely powerful lightning bolt at the entrance. Everything shook and rumbled as the tunnels caved in, crushing and burying alive anything that managed to withstand the impact of the lightning bolt. Breathing a sigh of relief, I grabbed Sam and ran my gaze and hands all over her, taking a full inventory.
“I’m okay.”
Her reassurance didn’t matter, and nor did the fact that I could sense through our bond that she wasn’t in pain. I had to see for myself that she was fine. Apparently I was annoying her because she cuffed me over the head, her mercury irises glinting.
“I said I’m okay. But some of these people aren’t, so let’s get them back to The Hollow now.”
CHAPTER THREE
(Sam)
Finding Antonio and Luther on a bench in the botanical gardens, Jared and I relayed to them everything that had happened on Quentin’s territory. Their expressions turned grimmer and grimmer as the story went on. The guards were casting each other uneasy glances, and even the dogs looked anxious as if the negativity in the air was affecting them.
“I’m thinking someone trapped all the vampires in the tunnels, and left them there to starve to death,” said Jared. “But why? And who would do that? It can’t have been an attempt at usurping Quentin or we all would have heard about his replacement by now. The guy would be bragging and claiming his position as the new High Master of Quentin’s territory.”
Jared made a good point, but there was something else that was bugging me. I cocked my head. “This is what I don’t understand. Why, if the vampires were so hungry, hadn’t they all turned on each other? If they were thirsty enough to attack all of us like that, so senselessly, why hadn’t they fed from each other?”
Antonio leaned forward in his seat; there was a sense of urgency in his manner that hadn’t been there before, and apprehension slid through me. “I need to ask you something. And this is very important. In the tunnels, was there an awful smell?”
“Yeah.” Jared’s elbow brushed against mine as he folded his arms across his chest. “Like rotten fish.”
Both Jared and I tensed when Antonio and Luther exchanged a frantic look. They actually paled, which was hard for two extremely pale-skinned vampires to do.
“What, what does that mean?” demanded Jared.
“It means that this was not a case of them starving due to having been trapped there,” said Antonio, worry etched into every line of his face. “And it perfectly answers Sam’s question.”
Jared sighed with impatience. “Antonio, you’re losing me here.”
“Have you ever heard of ‘The Reaper’s Call’? It is often abbreviated to ‘The Call’.” When both Jared and I shook our heads, Antonio explained. “As you know, vampires are immune to illnesses. But like with many species, vampirism has a natural killer designed to keep the population down. Throughout human history, there have always been diseases or viruses that have done much damage to their race. When cures are found for those viruses, others later develop. Some theorise that their purpose is to keep the human population under control, which makes sense. It is the natural way of things, and the same happens for vampires. If it did not, we w
ould outnumber our prey and quickly die out. The Call is not an illness, more like a preternatural poison that travels like a bug. And it is a killer.”
“There is only an outbreak every few centuries,” began Luther. “It seems that it occurs whenever nature feels that the population of vampires needs a ‘tweak’. It is a perfectly natural cycle, and this cycle helps maintain a balance in the population. But it does not do so cleanly. The Call works by stopping the vampire from being able to digest anything. Not blood, not food – nothing. As such, the vampire will regurgitate anything it tries to consume and slowly starve to death. A vampire can only survive starvation for four weeks.”
Jared rubbed at his nape. I could actually feel the crick in his neck. “How does the poison spread?”
Luther took a brief pause before answering with sympathy, “It can only taint its victim by travelling through saliva or blood to open flesh.” In other words, a bite would do the trick.
Jared’s eyes fell closed and then he was pacing in front of me. “Shit.”
Antonio nodded. “Yes…darn.”
An ache suddenly struck my chest; I wasn’t sure whether it was mine, Jared’s, or a combination of both our pain. If Antonio was right, then Evan, Max, and Stuart were now ‘tainted’. “Does this mean it’s possible that Ava’s brother isn’t tainted? He was clawed at badly, but not bitten.” Currently, all the injured were in the infirmary.
“If he has not been bitten, he is not tainted. Unless, of course, they somehow exchanged blood.” I was pretty sure that the latter hadn’t happened, so Antonio’s news would certainly calm Ava down. The girl was a nervous wreck at the moment, worried she would lose her brother – much like my mate was.
Jared halted. “Okay, so how do we stop it? How do we remove the taint from Evan, Max, and Stuart?”
“You can’t.” Antonio looked utterly distraught.